I really enjoyed learning about 19th century Paris and the culture's misogyny, as far as one can enjoy this. It was very interesting.

I also liked the magical realism/supernatural aspects, though they were much less prevalent in the second half of the book.

This book actually challenged me on some of my core beliefs as a writer - the author does a lot of "head-hopping", which is usually frowned upon in modern fiction, though it used to be quite common in classic literature. It forced me to confront whether I actually don't like this technique or whether that was just ingrained in me from countless online repetition. My final conclusion is that I don't know. It did feel quite jarring a lot of the time and often  broke the immersion. But maybe that was intentional?

In any case, I think that the translation was a bit subpar, featuring dangling modifiers and comma splices a lot. Again, maybe that's just the author's style, but I'd be willing to bet it's the translation. 

Overall I have mixed feelings on this book. It was easy to read and engaging, plus I learnt a lot, but the prose just felt disconnected at times in a way that I can't really explain. Still, a very solid book.